


How do you fight like you need it to survive?

by TheDarkChocolateLord



Series: Lumenaria [3]
Category: Keeper of the Lost Cities Series - Shannon Messenger
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Mentioned Injury, The Pyren Brothers AU, mentioned death, the castle is collapsing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:26:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28416087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkChocolateLord/pseuds/TheDarkChocolateLord
Summary: While escaping Lumenaria, Fintan runs into his brother.Bronte.He should fight him, shouldn't he?Could he fight him?
Relationships: Councillor Bronte & Fintan Pyren
Series: Lumenaria [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199858
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16





	How do you fight like you need it to survive?

_ It was going to plan. _

The cells were shattered, the goblins disposed of, the walls trembled.

_ It was going to plan. _

The force fields shifted as they moved, the cloaked prisoner followed, the walls quaked.

_ It was going to plan. _

They spiraled up passageways, they raced down halls, the walls jolted.

The walls were quaking and shaking more than Fintan would have liked, it was true, but they were out of the dungeons, each step taking them closer to the exit as they climbed a tightly spiralling staircase. His hand was white-knuckled on the rail as he climbed, not wanting to risk the impact of his fall destroying the fragile structure even more.

The steps shook harder behind Fintan; his back foot slipped into thin air.  _ No.  _ "The staircase won't hold!" he yelled, racing up the last four steps to the landing. 

Beneath him was an empty, crumbling, staircase.

If he squinted, he could see Gethen and Brant disappearing into the level below, silhouettes that must be Ruy and Vespera on the floor below that. A moment later, Ruy's voice yelled "I'm sorry, it won't stay, we're too far apart!" and Fintan's ever-shifting force field winked out.

_ No. _

He stood frozen in place, watching as his allies—his  _ friends _ —vanished. The floor shifted again and he barely kept his balance; he had to get moving, this place wouldn't hold for long.

He kept climbing, up and up and up, past twisted crystal and jewel and metal, past fallen walls and crumbling balconies, past smells that would make a weaker elf's stomach turn.

The castle jolted again, sending his feet out from under him as he abandoned the crumbling passageway and fell through a doorway, door long-gone. He stumbled to a standing position, and that was when he realized that there was another elf in the room. Not even five feet tall, once-ornate black outfit ripped and rumpled, eyes focused on only the exit.

"Hello, brother."

"Fintan!" Bronte gasped.

Flames rose from Fintan's hands, as easy as snapping his fingers. Easier, actually. He was terrible at snapping. "Strange we should meet in this way."

_ Take him down, take him down, it'll mean so much if you kill a Councillor— _ yet when Fintan looked back at his brother, he was staring at the eight-year-old who had remembered his birthday when no one else had, the sixteen-year-old who had stuck by his side when people feared the two of them for their dangerous abilities, the adult who he had spent centuries working with as a Councillor, battles and meetings and speeches and sleepovers.

"I'm not afraid to kill you," Fintan shouted, trying to keep his voice steady to cover the lie.

"I know you  _ can  _ kill me. But would you?"

"Don't test me," Fintan denied, and he realized that he could turn this on his brother, that Bronte was facing the same dilemma as he. "Go ahead, inflict on me! Show the world that you're who they think you are, not the kind person only those who are close to you know you to be. Although…." He thought about Gethen's anger at Oralie in the few telepathic conversations they had had. "Those who call you kind might not stay alive for long."

"If you hurt Oralie—"

Too easy.

Far too easy.

Yet Fintan noticed Bronte's hands raise in a motion that must be him preparing his inflicting, his eyes blazing like balefire. His brother had mastered his fury at last, spinning it into rage and power, and Fintan realized that Bronte's newest target was  _ him. _

He ducked the incoming red blast—yet it never came. 

"Look out!" Bronte yelled.

Fintan gasped; a desk-sized piece of rubble was falling from the balcony above. He dove to his left, only then noticing that—"Bronte, on your right!"

His brother raced for the center of the room just as the wall shattered, splattering the floor in chunks and crumbles of stone. Now it was the two of them, alone in a tiny clear space amongst the rubble, barely five feet apart. Yet neither of them attacked, neither of them said a word as they faced each other.

The ground shook; a jagged crack dove towards them, stopping at the toes of Fintan's boot.

Bronte turned and raced for the only remaining door.

Fintan followed him; now that Gethen and his prodigious memory were gone, his brother was his best chance of getting out alive. He stayed back, not wanting Bronte to hear and attack, yet he kept sight of the tiny figure ahead, down staircases and through passageways, around collapsed walls and stone shrapnel scraping and bruising his skin, until he emerged into the light.

Bronte spun around, squinting into the ruins of the castle. "Fintan!" His hands clenched, yet he made no move to inflict. 

Then and there, Fintan knew that he couldn't fight his brother, wouldn't fight his brother, that a fight between them would only lead to his capture.

There was so much he wanted to tell Bronte. So much he knew his brother wanted to hear. So much he could say if he could be brave.

It was always Bronte who was the brave one.

He ran. 

Running and running to get to the rendevous point. Running and running away from those who might capture him. Running and running from his brother, from his old life. Running and running, despite his body aching and his head pounding, until it felt like he was breathing shrapnel and he felt his heartbeat from his neck to his fingertips to his chest. 

He stumbled into the tiny ocean cave.

Gethen.

Ruy.

The new recruit, with long dark hair and skin as pale as the castle the four of them had just escaped.

"Good, you're safe," Ruy nodded.

"Where's Brant?" Fintan demanded.

All eyes turned to Gethen.

"Dead. Forkle shoved him into a piece of rubble. I got Forkle in revenge, but the castle split and then it was a challenge just getting out safely."

Brant, eyes flickering with warmth as Fintan gave him his first lesson on proper control of his flames.

Brant, calling down Everblaze to incubate the gorgodons. 

Brant, working side by side with Fintan over elaborate schemes and plots to make Pyrokinesis accepted for once and for all.

_ No—Brant—he can't be— _ Fintan knew that to say that would make him seem weak, laughable. A failure. And if there was anything Fintan Pyren was not, it was a failure. He could not say it, could not show it, yet sorrow and anger made his chest twist all the same.

"Let's go." He fiddled with the hidden pocket in his boot for his leaping crystal, ducking down to hide his tears. He could not cry. Would not cry.

_ It went to plan,  _ he reassured himself.  _ The world will see the Council as weak, will see the flaws and the need for change. _

_ It went to plan. _

Plans didn't account for Brant's death.

Plans didn't account for running into his brother.

Plans didn't account for how he could never hurt Bronte, would never hurt Bronte, and how that was going to be his downfall.

  
  



End file.
